Match Group Breaks Up With Tinder CEO as Revenues Cool

After warning shareholders that Tinder's revenue would fall below expectations, Match Group is shaking up the dating app's leadership in hopes of rekindling the spark. In a case of corporate speed-dating, Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg is out. She is not being immediately replaced. Instead, Match Group, which owns the eponymous online dating service along with OkCupid, Hinge, Meetic and Plenty of Fish, is moving three other executives over to shore up its 10-year-old lagging app. Most notably, Melissa Hobley is shifting from her role as OkCupid's global chief marketing officer after five years to become Tinder’s CMO. Hobley's new mission is to enhance Tinder's brand perception. Hobley will be joined at Tinder by Match Group chief strategy officer Faye Iosotaluno, who will take on the COO role. Mark van Ryswyk, a former gaming executive friend of Match Group CEO Bernard Kim, is now Tinder’s chief product officer. Nyborg was named Tinder CEO in September. The first woman chief executive at the app, she arrived at Tinder a year before as general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. (It can't have hurt that she met her now-husband on Tinder six years before joining the company.) At the time, Tinder was trying to get greater traction with a range of new features, such as an Explore function and videos. In 2020, Hobley directed OkCupid to add matching questions. Still, despite the fanfare and what appeared to be a good fit, Tinder continued to struggle. The holding company itself has had additional business challenges over the past few months. In May, Match Group sued Google in two separate complaints, alleging the search giant was holding its apps “hostage.” Specifically, the company charged that Google has “illegally monopolized the market for distributing apps” on Android by forcing apps to use the the tech platform's billing system and then taking a cut of the payments. Building a brand on bold flirtations As for Hobley, her star has been steadily rising at Match through a series of daring, flirtatious marketing maneuvers. From the start, Hobley has focused on OkCupid's storytelling and cultural relevance. She was responsible for the brand’s first-ever campaign, "DTF," which quickly went viral and drove tens of thousands downloads, she told Adweek last year. In 2020, OkCupid added numerous matching questions in markets around the world on issues from racial equity to voting to how someone is handling pandemic life. “We were the only dating app to add a Black Lives Matter badge and encouraged people to have thoughtful conversations about race right on our platform through our matching questions,” Hobley told Adweek at the time. Bold political moves have marked her tenure. That has kept the brand’s audience focused and devoted at time when many brands still try to appeal to a wide mass of consumers. Hobley was also behind the effort to create a Trump Filter to allow users to sort potential dates based on their political beliefs. It achieved buzz and brand engagement. The question now is whether she can stir that similar passion for Tinder. OkCupid Relaunches ‘Every Single Person’ Campaign to Champion Reproductive Rights

Leadership & Talent

As Tinder's Revenue Cools, Parent Match Group Moves OkCupid's Melissa Hobley to CMO Seat

The romance-seeking app is trying to recapture its former passion

David Kaplan

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

David Kaplan